


Out of the Blue

by Bexxx



Series: Stories involving Lendri [6]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:45:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1248109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bexxx/pseuds/Bexxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lendri and Teldryn encounter a strange beast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Blue

The weather was bright and windy. A few small bright clouds tumbled across the sky like frightened sheep.  
Lendri had run ahead on the path and was standing by the edge of the river, skipping stones, waiting for Teldryn to catch up with him.

Orange flashed across the corner of his vision and he reached out, catching at with one hand. A butterfly. It was crunchy and the wings melted on his tongue and left a filmy, sweet taste on his tongue. He smiled. It was a good day to travel. It was a good day in general, just to be alive.

"To think I kiss that mouth," Teldryn grumbled. The Dunmer had caught up with him just in time to see him eating an insect.

"Oh, don't be such a child. You know at home I ate even worse bugs? Like worms and centipedes. Have you ever seen a centipede?"

"Yes. When we stayed at your village last winter. It was about a foot long I think, it was blue and orange and it crawled through the door like it owned the place, and then out the broken wall at the back. A fascinating creature but I have no idea why you'd ever think to eat one."

"See, I think the same way about ash yams."

They continued down the road side by side this time, arguing about who's culture's food was more disgusting, when a horse fell from the sky and landed, intact but with a horrible scream, on the ground, and promptly died.

The were struck dumb with shock for a minute.

"By Azura...where did come from?" Teldryn looked into the sky as if he expected another horse to follow the first.

Carefully they approached it.

"Well, it's pretty dead," Lendri said. "But why didn't it splatter? That's what happened to this one horse that fell off of the throat of the world. That was pretty awful, really."

"I read once that dust storms in Elsweyr sometimes pick up plants and small animals and drop them again, sometimes days later."

"So, it picked up this single horse? Nothing else? And it doesn't look like it's been flying around in a storm for days. It's totally healthy."

Teldryn shook his head, bewildered.

"Maybe it's a horse from the Gods, like they were putting a new horse on Nirn and just did it wrong, like dropped it from too far up."

"I don't think so."

"Why not? Horses have to come from somewhere."

Teldryn was silent for a moment. "Horses come from other horses, Lendri," he said at last, shaking his head.

"I know that," Lendri said. "I mean maybe it was a new kind of horse."

They studied it for a moment. It seemed to be, to all outward appearances, an ordinary, garden variety horse in the peak of health, except that it was dead and had fallen out of a clear sky.

"It must be somehow different on the inside," Lendri decided, drawing his knife. "Let's see."

He knelt to begin skinning it, but as soon as the blade touched it's body, the horse shot away into the sky, gone as swiftly and mysteriously as it had arrived.

"Well----damn."

"Come on Lendri, we're getting away from here. I don't know what's going on but only an idiot would stay here when there's half ton bags of meat and bone flying around."

Lendri stared into the sky, still puzzled. "Alright. At least it'll make for an interesting story in the next town."

"No one will believe it."

*

Later, after night had fallen, they arrived at a small farm outside of Solitude. A group of curious villagers stood at a safe distance holding torches, around the body of a horse.

"It's back," Lendri said. "That's the same horse from the road."

"You saw this thing earlier?" said an Orc who was standing nearby, sharpening an axe. "It just fell out of the sky, nearly crushed the stableboy. We're just going to cut it up and burn it. Damned thing's probably cursed."

"Nooo! I was going to study it!"

"Stay back, you crazy elf! You don't study this kind of thing, you damn well get rid of it as best you can!," snapped a Nord woman, who was standing nearby and seemed to be in charge.

"What if it's a new kind of horse the world has never seen?"

"Don't look new to me," said the Orc, and approached it with his axe. But as he grew close, the horse began to twitch horribly, unnaturally, the limbs bending in a way no horse's ever had. The villagers gasped and stepped back and a few of them screamed. Then it spiraled away into the sky once more.

"Cursed," breathed the Nord woman. "You were right," she said to the Orc. "I'll send for a priest at dawn to bless the farm."

"I told you it was a new kind of horse," Lendri muttered. "And they scared it off. I bet it was new kind of horse that flies and plays dead."

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Teldryn asked.

"Can you think of a better explanation?"

"....No."

The flying horse of Solitude was never seen again. It became a legend in the surrounding area, though the Dragonborn being there to witness it was often believed to be an embellishment.


End file.
